Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 31

The Edmonton Journal, Saturday, November 28, 1998 C3 i it line MONITORLO V7MV I i Oh, my God! They recorded stitute, his valentine to Kathie Lee Gifford, includes a ridiculously explicit description of hummingbird nookie, while the Rick JamesDee Turner version of Love Gravy goes so far over the edge that even Chef is offended. "C'mon, Rick," says Chef. That's not cool." There are some wickedly funny musical numbers. Rapper Master borrows from Curtis Mayfield's Freddie'sDead to create Kenny's Dead, while Porno for Pyros' Perry Farrell turns in a wonderfully funky and surprisingly erudite version of Chef's Hot Lava. Naturally the South Park gang gets into the act from time to time Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny join Wyclef Jean on the nonsensical ragga lament Bubblegoose (though Cartman keeps mistaking Wyclef for rapper Mack 10), while Vietnam vet Ned Garblansky uses Bad Feel Like Makin 'Love to prove you don't need a larynx to make records.

But the best track for fans is Nitro's Mentally Dull (Think Tank Remix), a mega-mix that shapes snippets of South Park dialogue into a techno workout. Not only does it include some of the show's best bits, but Nitro even managed to turn the phrase "Oh, my God! They killed Kenny!" into a chorus of sorts. There's also plenty of cursing on the album and not of the bleeped variety heard on the show, either. In short, Chef Aid: TheSouth Park Album, like South Park itself, is not kid stuff J.D. Considine, The Baltimore Sun Chef Aid: The South Park Album is out Given the amount of money already being made on South Park videos and T-shirts, there was a certain inevitability to the release of a South Park CD.

After all, if the Brady Bunch could cut songs, why not Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny? But the Chef Aid album isn't built around the warbling of animated tykes (and after hearing Cartman's rendition of the Styx oldie Come Sail Away, you'll be glad of it). Instead, it's an all-star project designed to emphasize the show's hiptitude. On the whole, the album is much like the show: occasionally funny frequently tasteless and guaranteed to provoke the prudish. Chef A id started out as an episode in which Chef a crooning, Salisbury-steak-slinging love machine voiced by Isaac Hayes winds up owing $2 million after losing a court case. He's saved from certain poverty when his old rock star buddies mount a charity concert on his behalf.

Elton John, Rick James and Ozzy Osbourne (who bites the head off Kenny) all make cameos. Chef Aid- The South Park Album doesn't completely follow the TV episode. There's no Mr Hat subplot, no appearance by Johnnie Cochran, and no sign of Alanis Morissette performing Stinky Britches (don't ask). But it does have Ween, Perry Farrell, and he bizarre pairing of Ozzy Osbourne and 01' Dirty Bastard. The South Park Album also expands on the show's fondness for 7 enny: No, we're not talking Kenny Rogers here, or even Kenny G.

We're talking Kenny McCormick, the mumbling, frequently decapitated elementary schooler whose death is a weekly occurrence on the cartoon South Park. Springsteen, Lennon and other big-name box sets have been reviewed everywhere. Herels a list of other box sets available for this Christmas season: BURT BACHARACH: The Look of Love Anyone still scratching their heads over BacharachS latest resurrection should delve into this three-CD treasure trove of hits. It includes everything from the early obscurities like Theme From theBloblo the best-known Dionne Warwick hits of the '60s and 70s and right up through his collaboration with Elvis Costello. RAY CHARLES: The Complete Country Western Recordings Any notion of a clean separation between "black" and "white" music got blurrier once Charles applied his rhythm-and-blues inflections to country and western.

Starting in 1 962, Charles began regularly cutting these songs, giving them a feeling all his own. JOHN COLTRANE: The Classic Quartet Complete Impulse Studio Recordings On ly seven of the 66 tracks on this set cant be found elsewhere. But the numbers here recorded between December 1 961 and September 1 965 certified Coltrane's legend. They capture the apex of his best-known band: pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. Following Coltranes last box set, which collected his live recordings from New York in 1961 these cuts capture the style that inspired the free jazz movement, giving the form its future.

MILES DAVIS: The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions Fusion-jazz found its footing on Davis' original Bitches Brew. Fired by late '60s psychedelic rock, Davis cooked up a style that treated jazz with equal fervor. He did so with a quintet, backing his piercing trumpet with Wayne Shortens painterly sax, Chick Corea's electric piano, Dave Holland's stalwart bass and Jack DeJohnette's barreling drums. While the original double album, released in April 1970, ran just over 90 minutes, this set brings together nine never-before-released jams from the firewsession, plus other numbers cut around the same time, previously parceled out on other albums. The result is 265 minutes of music that nails not just one of Davis' richest periods, but a watershed crossover point between two of music's most expansive genres.

MARIANNE FATTHFULL Perfect Stranger She doesnt record often cut just six albums in the 19 years since she refigured herself as the Marlene Dietrich of her generation. Also, she already had a best-of set. But for those who haven't fol lowed the story so far, this two-CD set collects 35 of her most bracing recordings, including four previously unveiled. The rarities include a song Bono wrote for her, Conversation on a Barstool, plus a take on John Lennon's Isolation. Together, it forms an ideal soundtrack for the self-destructive.

JUDY GARLAND: Judy Fans will think they've landed in Oz when they hear this four-CD set, tracing Garland's career from an early recording made at age seven through herfinal recordings in 1969. The package also houses a half-hour video culled from her network TV variety show of 1 963-64. Most of the unreleased recordings come from the concert stage, including duets with Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee and Bobby Darin. MARVIN GAYE: Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions The song Sexual Healing reanimated Gaye's career in 1982 and provided the legend with one of the great erotic anthems of all time. This two-CD set adds a dozen earlier unreleased tracks from the session that produced both the classic song and its album, Midnight Love.

Gaye was murdered by his father less than two years after these sessions. This set brings listeners into the making of his last great work. RANDY NEWMAN: Guilty: 30 Years He possesses one of the most deadpan voices in modern pop, the perfect instrument for his jaundiced lyrics. Since 1968, Newman has fashioned social satire into songs many of them rich with innovative orchestrations. These four CDs cover the last 30 years, with the first two LPs dedicated to this best-known numbers, one devoted to castoffs and the last composed entirely of his film music.

While some of his albums deserve to be preserved in their entirety, this set skillfully skims the cream off pop's longest-running cynic. FRANK SINATRA: The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings Sinatra created Reprise Records in 1960, and recorded about 450 songs for the label until he returned to Capitol in 1 988. You'll find every one of those officially released recordings here, on 20 CDs. If it's not the very peak of Sinatra's art his '50s recordings on Capitol take that crown you'll find scores of terrific performances. Obsessives with a healthy bank account can't do better than this.

low humour and vulgarity Even on the show, Chef's songs are full of comic innuendo, as he mixes food- and sex-metaphors in such sinpifMrntenrirp master- pieces as Love Gravy. But when all viewers get is a 45- b- TT33T second snippet of the song, the lyrics aren't likely to get too explicit. On album, how ever, Chef serves up the uncut versions of these songs, and that takes them beyond even the boundaries of cable-TV decency No Sub JT 2. Pearl Jam's latest offering is great, but Metallica, Garage Inc. Pearl Jam, Live on Two Legs Eddie Vedder's husky baritone rubbed against the relentless drive of the guitars.

Yet as much as the performance reminds us of what made Pearl Jam matter in the first place, the band hardly plays it safe with the song, giving the guitarists (especially Mike McCready) plenty of room to reinvent. That's typical of the album's strengths. It's one thing for a band to move from raging rockers to quiet, acoustic tunes in the course of a set, quite another to maintain a similar intensity regardless of volume. Yet that's precisely what Pearl Jam does here, pulling as much momentum from lush, low-key tunes such as Daughter and Elderly WomanBehind the Counter in a Small Town as from all-out ravers like Go or Do the Evolution. Best of all, what comes across most clearly in this recording is the communication among band members.

What we hear isn't Eddie Vedder and some guys with guitars, but the work of five equals, with bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Matt Cameron every bit as essential to the sound as Vedder or McCready Pearl Jam may not be as big as it once was, but sometimes, size really doesn't matter. There was a time when Pearl Jam was the biggest band in rock 'n' roll. In 1994, Pearl Jam seemed unstoppable. Not only did its albums go straight to No. 1, but they set records in doing so (Vita fogy sold nearly a million copies in its first week of release).

Moreover, the band was one of the hottest tickets on the concert circuit, selling out shows as soon as they were announced. That changed after Pearl Jam refused to play venues that used Tick-etMaster and effectively stopped touring for a couple of years. By the time the band was back out on the road, the Pearl Jam juggernaut had lost its momentum. So where once, Pearl Jam's Live On Two Legs would have been a marketing sensation, now it's just another title in the record industry's pre-Christmasrush. A shame, really, because this 17-song live album makes it quite clear that Pearl Jam's sound is as vital as it ever total of 37 songs.

How, then, has he managed to compile a 28-song Best of collection? Simple: By padding. Divided into a ballad disc and a dance disc, the double-CD Ladies Gentlemen does deliver all the big hits, from Faithto Father Figureto 1 Want Your Sex, but it augments them with such ephemera as I Can't Make You Love Me and the Astrud Gilberto duet Desafi-nado. Stranger still, the set includes those songs at the expense of some actual hits, such as Mother's Pride. Various Artists, One Amazing Night With four decades of hits to his credit, Burt Bacharach generated one of the most urbane and accessible catalogues in popular music. No wonder we keep getting reminders of his greatness.

One Amazing Night is taken from an all-star concert in New York that was shot for the TNT cable channel and offers a dozen pop stars performing Bacharach favourites. Not every attempt pans out the Ben Folds Five bash through Raindrops Keep Fallin On My Head was more fun to watch than it is to hear but the best are stunning. Of particular note is Chrissie Hynde's piquant Baby It 's You, but Elvis Costello's God Give Me Strength is also a stunner. J.D. Considine, Baltimore Sun Metallica didn't revolutionize metal all by itself; the band was heavily influenced by acts like Diamond Head, Budgie and the Misfits, whose songs Metallica covered on 1987's Garage DaysRevisitedEP.

With Garage Metallica continues that approach, albeit with somewhat broader tastes. In addition to covering vintage ear-busters by Diamond Head, the Misfits, Mercyful Fate and Discharge, this new disc finds the band giving props to Bob Seger (a gritty Turn the Page), Thin Lizzy (an impassioned Whiskey in the Jar) and, yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd (a bluesy acoustic Tuesday 's Gone). This may not be the Metallica fans expect, but it's terrific fun and with a second disc that includes Garage Days Revisited and other rarities, it'sabar-gaintoboot. George Michael, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Best of George Michael Everybody knows George Michael is a talented performer, but is he really as good as Ladies Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael suggests? Since leaving Michael has released three albums and an EP, delivering a was. Cue up Evenlow, for instance, and it's like being knocked back to '92, when the band was new and there was something thrilling about the way Current Albums Country Albums Albums 1.

Garth Brooks, Double Live) 2. Offspring, Americana!) CJSR's Alternative 7op 10 1. Cat Power, Moon Pix 2. Pine Valley Cosmonauts, The Majesty of Bob Wills 3. Jen KraafeWhisperers, Trudge 4.

Edith Frost, Telecsopic 5. Son Volt, Wide Swing Tremolo 6. The Ex, StartersAlternaters 7. Jon Spencer Blues Acme 8. The Hell Billys, Tied to a Rocket 1.

Garth Brooks, Double Live (1) 2. Various Artists, CMT99(2) 3. Shania Twain, Come On 0ver(2) 4. Dixie Chicks, Wide Open Spaces) 5. Deana Carter, Everything's Gonna BeAlright( 0) 6.

Faith Hill, faft (5) 7. Hope Floats, 1. Method Man, Vol. 2-Tical-JudgementDay) 2.lceCube,Wa-(3) 3. Marian Carey, INoTs (2) 4.

Brandy, Never Say Never(5) 5. 112, Room 112(W) 6. Monica, TheBoylsMine(S) 7. Lauryn Hill, MiseducationofLaurynHill4) 8. Dru Hill, Enter The Dm) 9.

Whitney Houston, MyLovelsYourLove7) 1 0. Ninety-Eight Degrees, 98 Degrees 3. Various Artists, Muchdance 1999(2) 4. 5. 6.

Alanis Morisette, Supposed Former lnfatuation(7) 7. Armageddon, Soundtrack) 8. Celine Dion, These Are Special Times) 9. Various Artists, CMT99(S) 10. Method Man, Vol.

2-Tical-JudgementDay5) 9. Lyle Lovett, Step Inside This House 10. Trevor Rockwell, TheRobot Soundtracm 8. Alan Jackson, HighMileage(T) 9. Brooks Dunn, HYouSeeHerW) 10.

Jodee Messina, I'm Alright) hi II IIs! A SOURCE: SoundScan, Inc Figures are based on sales. CJSR chart based on airplay. Numbers In brackets denote national rankings..